Joshua Davis may not be the household name that Eminem and Jay Z have become, but his keen ear for instrumentation, razor-sharp turntable skills and bottomless record crate have earned Davis a massive and fiercely loyal following as DJ Shadow. And while Activision partnered with Eminem and Jay Z to provide exclusive music for DJ Hero, when it came to actually making the game — and its plastic turntable — Activision turned to Shadow.With over 100 songs from over 80 artists, including plenty of new talent hand-picked by DJ Shadow, DJ Hero could be the next big thing for a genre that needs a jump-start. After all, by now many gamers already own the full band experience for Guitar Hero and Rock Band. So getting them to invest in a turntable opens up another stream of revenue for downloadable music. In this exclusive interview, GameCulture sat down with Davis to talk about DJ Hero and get his thoughts on how the game might do for hip hop what it’s already done for rock.

When you look at the success that Guitar Hero has had with rock music, what impact do you see DJ Hero having on gaming?

It’s really hard to predict. We definitely have an uphill battle in the sense that a lot of the music that DJs celebrate is not mainstream, so we’ve tried to bridge the gap on the game by incorporating a lot of songs that hopefully people will recognize on some level. But hopefully the songs are still credible and the DJs would actually play. Personally, I have kind of a rigid standard when it comes to what it is I will and won’t play. I don’t like to play like really uber pop stuff or stuff that I just don’t respect. Do you see hip hop and the gameplay experience of DJ Hero being a more challenging sell to gamers?It will be interesting, because with the rock games you’re talking about music and riffs and guitar parts that people have lived with and it’s ingrained in their system from birth practically…when you’re talking about stuff like Freebird or whatever. That may or may not be the case with some of the songs that we use, but on the other hand, I think that there’s a lot of people that are curious about being a DJ and about experiencing what it is like because everybody has seen people do this. So I think that the time has come for the DJing tradition and the disciplines that go along with it to be taken seriously on a musical level.

Can you talk a little bit about the music that you’re exposing gamers to with DJ Hero?

Yeah, I think we tried to basically -- I wasn’t the only one inputting their opinion in terms of what should be used -- but I definitely said any DJ game has to include A, B, and C, and they’re not household name songs, but they’re songs that everybody knows. Everybody knows the song that goes “It’s time,” but nobody knows what the song is called. They all thing it’s called “It’s Time.” But those little bits of knowledge that come from being a DJ for years. I mean, I’ve been a DJ since 1984 and there are songs like that in the game, which I am proud of, and then there are songs that are hot off the press. There are even songs in the game that haven’t even been released yet by great named artists. So we’ve tried to mix it up a little bit and you know there’s always going to be compromises, but I’m really happy with the mixes I did. I haven’t heard all the mixes, but the mixes that I did I basically tried to combine a credible, well-known song with a really credible underground song.

What do you think it says that people like JayZ and Eminem are involved with this game?

My reaction is like, “Great.” People will pay attention, you know what I mean? And I’m all for it. If it helps the game and it helps people get interested in the game and get interested in DJing, then I’m all for it. I’d be all for anybody getting involved that was credible and that added a dimension of interest to the game.

What impact do you think this game will have on your profession?

I think that there are a lot of people that are curious about being a DJ and about experiencing what it is like to it because everybody has seen people do this. You always see people doing that in the same way that you see people doing scratching or mixing. So I think that the time has come for the DJing tradition and the disciplines that go along with it to be taken seriously on a musical level.